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FROM THE EMINENT SOVIET JOURNAL: 'SPUTNIK' IS THE MOON THE CREATION OF INTELLIGENCE?
#1
Although people long ago began to wonder whether the "canals" on Mars
were the creation of cosmic engineers, for some odd reason it has not
occurred to look with the same eyes upon the peculiarities of the lunar
landscape much closer at hand. And all the arguments about the
possibilities of intelligent life existing on other celestial bodies
have been confined to the idea that other civilisations must necessarily
live on the surface of a planet, and that the interior as a habitat is
out of the question.
Abandoning the traditional paths of "common sense", we have plunged into
what may at first sight seem to be unbridled and irresponsible fantasy.
But the more minutely we go into all the information gathered by man about
the Moon, the more we are convinced that there is not a single fact to
rule out our supposition. Not only that, but many things so far considered
to be lunar enigmas are explainable in the light of this new hypothesis.
AN ARTIFICIAL SPUTNIK OF THE EARTH?
The origin of the Moon is one of the most complicated problems of cosmogony.
So far there have been basically three hypotheses under discussion.
HYPOTHESIS I. The Moon was once a part of the Earth and broke away from it.
This has now been refuted by the evidence.
HYPOTHESIS II. The Moon was formed independently from the same cloud of
dust and gas as the Earth, and immediately became the Earth's natural
satellite.
But then why is there such a big difference between the specific gravity of
the Moon (3.33 grammes per cubic centimetre) and that of the Earth
(5.5 gr.)? Furthermore, according to the latest information (analysis of
samples brought back by the U.S. Apollo astronauts) lunar rock is not of the
same composition as the Earth's.
HYPOTHESIS III. The Moon came into being separately, and, moreover, far
from the Earth (perhaps even outside the Solar system).
This would mean that the moon would not have to be fashioned from the same
"clay" as our own planet. Sailing through the Universe, the Moon came into
Earth's proximity, and by a complex interplay of forces of gravity was
brought within a geocentric orbit, very close to circular. But a catch of
this kind is virtually impossible.
In fact, scientists studying the origin of the Universe today have no
acceptable theory to explain how the Earth-Moon system came into being.
OUR HYPOTHESIS: The Moon is an artificial Earth satellite put into orbit
around the Earth by some intelligent beings unknown to ourselves.
We refuse to engage in speculation about who exactly staged this unique
experiment, which only a highly developed civilisation was capable of.
A NOAH'S ARK?
If you are going to launch an artificial sputnik, then it is advisable to
make it hollow. At the same time it would be naive to imagine that anyone
capable of such a tremendous space project would be satisfied simply with
some kind of giant empty trunk hurled into a near-Earth trajectory.
It is more likely that what we have here is a very ancient spaceship, the
interior of which was filled with fuel for the engines, materials and
appliances for repair work, navigation, instruments, observation equipment
and all manner of machinery... in other words, everything necessary to
enable this "caravelle of the Universe" to serve as a kind of Noah's Ark
of intelligence, perhaps even as the home of a whole civilisation envisaging
a prolonged (thousands of millions of years) existence and long wanderings
through space (thousands of millions of miles).
Naturally, the hull of such a spaceship must be super-tough in order to stand
up to the blows of meteorites and sharp fluctuations between extreme heat and
extreme cold. Probably the shell is a double-layered affair--the basis a
dense armouring of about 20 miles in thickness, and outside it some kind of
more loosely packed covering (a thinner layer--averaging about three miles).
In certain areas--where the lunar "seas" and "craters" are, the upper layer
is quite thin, in some cases, non-existent.
Since the Moon's diameter is 2,162 miles, then looked at from our point of
view it is a thin-walled sphere. And, understandably, not an empty one.
There could be all kinds of materials and equipment on its inner surface.
But the greatest proportion of the lunar mass is concentrated in the central
part of the sphere, in its core, which has a diameter of 2,062 miles.
Thus the distance between the kernel and the shell of this nut is in the
region of 30 miles. This space was doubtless filled with gases required for
breathing, and for technological and other purposes.
With such an internal structure the Moon could have an average specific
gravity if 3.3 grammes per cubic centimetre, which differs considerably from
that of Earth (5.5 grammes per cubic centimetre).
A BATTLESHIP THEY COULDN'T TORPEDO?
The most numerous and interesting of the formations on the lunar surface are
the craters. In diameter they vary considerably. Some are less that a yard
across, while others are more than 120 miles (the biggest has a diameter of
148 miles). How does the Moon come to be so pockmarked?
There are two hypothesis--volcanic and meteoric. Most scientists vote for
the latter.
Kirill Stanyukovich, a Soviet physicist, has written a whole series of works
since 1937 in which he expounds the idea that the craters are the result of
bombardment of the Moon for millions of years. And he really means
bombardment, for even the smallest celestial body, when it is involved in one
of those fastest head-on collisions so common in the cosmos behaves itself
like a warhead charged with dynamite, or even an atomic warhead at times.
Instant combustion takes place on impact, turning it into a dense cloud of
incandescent gas, into plasma, and there is a very definite explosion.
According to Professor Stanykovich, a "missile" of a sizable character (say 6
miles in diameter) must, on collision with the Moon, penetrate to a depth
equal to 4 or 5 times its own diameter (24-30 miles).
The surprising thing is that however big the meteorites may have been which
have fallen on the Moon (some have been more than 60 miles in diameter), and
however fast they must have been travelling (in some cases the combined speed
was as much as 38 miles per second), the craters they have left behind are
for some odd reason all about the same depth, 1.2-2 miles, although they vary
tremendously in diameter.
Take that 148-mile diameter crater. In area it outdoes Hiroshima hundreds of
times over. What a powerful explosion it must have been to send millions of
tons of lunar rock fountaining over tens of miles! On the face of it, one
would expect to find a very deep crater here, but nothing of the sort: there
is three miles at the most between top and bottom levels, and one third of
that is accounted for by the wall of rock thrown up around the crater like
a toothed crown.
For such a big hole, it is too shallow. Furthermore, the bottom of the crater
is convex, following the curve of the lunar surface. If you were to stand in
the middle of the crater you would not even be able to see the soaring edge--
it would be beyond the horizon. A hollow that is more like a hill is a
rather strange affair, perhaps.
Not really, if one assumes that when the meteorite strikes the outer covering
of the moon, this plays the role of a buffer and the foreign body finds
itself up against an impenetrable spherical barrier. Only slightly denting
the 20-mile layer of armour plating, the explosion flings bits of its
"coating" far and wide.
Bearing in mind that the Moon's defence coating is, according to our
calculations, 2.5 miles thick, one sees that this is approximately the
maximum depth of the craters.
A SPACESHIP COME TO GRIEF?
Now let us consider the chemical peculiarities of the lunar rock. Upon
analysis, American scientists have found chromium, titanium and zirconium in
it. These are all metals with refractory, mechanically strong and
anti-corrosive properties. A combination of them all would have envitable
resistance to heat and the ability to stand up to means of aggression, and
could be used on Earth for linings for electrical furnaces.
If a material had to be devised to protect a giant artificial satellite from
the unfavourable effects of temperature, from cosmic radiation and meteorite
bombardment, the experts would probably have hit on precisely these metals. In
that case it is not clear why lunar rock is such an extraordinarily poor heat
conductor--a factor which so amazed the astronauts? Wasn't that what the
designers of the super-sputnik of the Earth were after?
From the engineers point of view, this spaceship of ages long past which we
call the Moon is superbly constructed. There may be a good reason for its
extreme longevity. It is even possible that it predates our own planet. At
any rate, some pieces of lunar rock have proved older than the oldest on
Earth, although it is true, this applies to the age of the materials and not
of the structure for which they were used. And from the number of craters on
its surface, the Moon itself is no chicken.
It is, of course, difficult to say when it began to shine in the sky above
the Earth, but on the basis of some preliminary estimates one might hazard a
guess that it was around two thousand million years ago.
We do not, of course, imagine that the moon is still inhabited, and probably
many of its automatic devices have stopped working, too. The stabilisers
have ceased functioning and the poles have shifted. Even though the moon
keeps that same side turned towards us, for some time it has been unsteady on
its own axis, on occasion showing us part of its reverse side which were
once invisible to observers on the Earth--for example, the Selenites
themselves if they made expeditions here.
Time has taken its toll. Both body and rigging have disintegrated to some
extent; some seams on the inner shell evidently diverged. We assume that
the long (up to 940 miles) chains of small craters formerly ascribed to
volcanic activity were brought about by eruptions of gas through cracks
appearing in the armour plating as a result of accidents.
No doubt one of the most splendid features of the lunarscape--a straight
"wall" nearly 500 yards high and over 60 miles long--formed as a result of
one of the armour plates bending under the impact of celestial torpedoes and
raising one of its straight, even edges.
The Moon's population presumeably took the necessary steps to remedy the
effects of meteorite bombardment, for example, patching up rents in the
outer shield covering the inner shell. For such purposes a substance from
the lunar core was probably used, a kind a cement being made from it. After
processing this would be piped to the surface sites where it was required.
Not long ago astronomers discovered variations in the gravitational fields
near the large "seas". We believe the reason to be this: the Moon's dry seas
are in fact areas from which the protective coating was torn from the armour
cladding. To make good the damage to these vast tracts, the installation
producing the repair substance would have had to be brought immediately
beneath the site so that it could flood the area with is "cement". The
resulting flat stretches are what look like seas to the terrestrial observer.
The stocks of materials and machinery for doing this are no doubt still where
they were, and are sufficiently massive to give rise to these gravitational
anomalies.
What is the Moon today? Is it a colossal necropolis, a "city of the dead,"
where some form of life became extinct? Is it a kind cosmic Flying Dutchman?
A craft abandoned by its crew and controlled automatically? We do not know
and we shall not try to guess.
WAITING FOR THE EVIDENCE
We have put forward in this article only a few of the reasons--unfortunately
the evidence is so far only circumstantial--for our hypothesis, which at
first glance may appear to be crazy.
A similar "crazy" idea was put forward in 1959 by Professor Iosif Shklovsky,
an eminent scientist, in relation to the "moons" circling around Mars.
After carefully weighing up the evidence he concludes that they are both
hollow and therefore artificial satellites.
We feel that the questions we have raised in connection with our Moon provide
sufficient food for serious thought on the matter; the result may be the
illumination of our many lunar riddles.
Now, of course, we have to wait for direct evidence to support our idea. Or
refute it.
Probably there will not be long to wait.
"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son" ~ Dean Wormer.
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